Swiss mess could make oil plunge seem like minor hiccup

One day, it’s gold. The next, it’s equities. Most days, it’s crude. On Wednesday, it was copper. On Thursday it was the Swiss franc and Swiss stocks. And the move in those two makes those others look like minor-league hiccups.

Meanwhile, collapsing oil is claiming its next batch of victims. Apache just became the first, and certainly not the last, big-name oil producer to cut a notable number of jobs. And Calgary is suffering through it’s worst decline in home prices in almost two years.

So where’s that cheap oil upside? Perhaps, it’s in the opportunity created in solar stocks (check out the call of the day for some picks).

The best thing that can be said about oil at this point is that, hey, at least it’s not bitcoin. Or the ruble. More fallout to come if $50 does, indeed, turn out to be a ceiling (see below) and if, as Goldman Sachs says, prices fall below the bank’s $39 target.

Bitcoin is climbing back from the depths with a 10% rise. But the big swings are definitely in play, so keep your head down, and your pocket protector in place.

Then there’s crude
CLG5, +0.00%
the number one factor in determining the fate of the world economy, according to Anatole Kaletsky. “Every global recession since 1970 has been preceded by at least a doubling of the oil price, and every time the oil price has fallen by half and stayed down for six months or so, a major acceleration of global growth has followed,” he wrote. Kaletsky said $50 is the new ceiling, while many believe it to be the floor. It doesn’t look like oil has much interest in testing it this morning. Prices are off almost 1% to $48.15 a barrel.

Anatole Kaletsky

The quote of the day

“No one talks about the birth and death rates of American business because Wall Street and the White House, no matter which party occupies the latter, are two gigantic institutions of persuasion. The White House needs to keep you in the game because their political party needs your vote. Wall Street needs the stock market to boom, even if that boom is fueled by illusion. So both tell us, ‘The economy is coming back.’ — Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup, in a piece entitled, “American Entrepreneurship: Dead or Alive?”

The economy

A trio of reports hits 8:30 a.m. Eastern, consisting of initial weekly unemployment claims, the producer price index and the NY Fed Empire State manufacturing survey. Then, at 10:00 a.m., we’ll get the Philly Fed manufacturing survey for January. Read: First clues for U.S. economy in 2015 on tap.

As for earnings movers, shares of eHealth
EHTH, -2.41%
are looking eSick this morning after the Internet-based health insurance company warned that its quarterly results will come in well below prior forecasts. The stock is getting chopped in half premarket.

The buzz

That huge bump in BlackBerry
US:BBRY
shares that gave the hopeless hope looks to be short-lived. The stock is off about 15% premarket after the company threw water on the Samsung
SSNLF, -3.07%
speculation that had driven shares up 30% in Wednesday’s trading session.

Adobe
ADBE, -8.04%
shares are getting a little lift after the software company said it plans to buy back up to $2 billion in stock by the end of fiscal 2017. The company has already run through its current $2 billion buyback authority, Adobe said.

Mexico’s Carlos Slim doesn’t always increase his ownership in U.S.-based papers, but when he does, he exercises warrants to bump his stake in the New York Times
NYT, -2.55%
The stock doesn’t seem to care that much as it meanders in flat territory.

It was bound to happen, and it’s finally here. Apache
APA, -2.40%
is cutting up to 250 workers this week in one of the first major workforce reductions at an American oil producer since the bottom started falling out of crude prices. This could be the beginning of an ugly(er) stretch.

The chart of the day

After I got sucked into watching “Return to Paradise” for the first time in 15 years last night, it’s only fitting that today’s chart is about the allure of investing in Malaysia. “Coming into the week, Malaysia has been setting up for what I think could be a violent mean reversion to the upside,” said J.C. Parets of the All Star Charts blog. “I think we’re about to see money rotating into Malaysia at a faster rate that the U.S.” He used this chart to support his bullish case for the iShares MSCI Malaysia ETF
EWM, -1.20%
“This level also sparked the last leg of this up move starting at the end of 2011. You see that failed breakdown in September 2011? Nice right?”

All Star Charts

The call of the day

If you’re sniffing around the oil sector for bargains but don’t have the gumption to pull the trigger, Paulo Santos of Think Finance says solar stocks like First Solar
FSLR, -0.97%
JA Solar
US:JASO
and JinkoSolar
JKS, -2.37%
might be ideal the play for you. They “have been severely punished by the oil slide, and this punishment looks at least partially irrational,” he said. “It’s simply one of those occasions where the market punishes a given sector for the wrong reasons, and thus hopefully, the punishment is for the most part temporary.” Santos said he doesn’t currently own a position in any of these stocks but is considering diving in over the next 72 hours.

Random reads

Wade Boggs’s lifetime batting average of .328 is impressive. His ability to knock back 107 beers in one day may be even more so.

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